Tag: fault

On 16 April an earthquake of magnitude Mw7.0 hit the district of Kumamoto, Kyushu Island, Japan. The quake was preceeded by a Mw6.1 foreshock one day before. It occurred on the ENE striking, right lateral Futagawa-Hinagu fault zone. Our colleague Koji Okumura from Hiroshima University has prepared a short report on this surface-rupturing event. Download the report here (PDF, 612 kb). The report will be continuously revised and corrected, so check for regular updates. Thanks Koji for providing this summary!

Great news reached us from Spain! Our colleague Julián Garcia Mayordomo spread the news that an updated version of the Quaternary Active Faults Database of Iberia (QAFI) is now available online. QAFI has a GoogleMaps-based interface with clickable features providing loads of content on fault geometry, fault mechanism, slip-rate, historical and pre-historical seismicity, geomorphology, compilers, further references and much more. Truly a wonderful tool, congratulations!

Our colleagues Stéphane Baize and Oona Scotti from the French IRSN finished a report on the 2014 Napa Earthquake: Post-seismic survey report, with special focus on surface faulting. On 24 August 2014, an earthquake of magnitude Mw6 occurred on the West Napa Fault in shallow depth. The quake caused significant damage, an interesting pattern of surface ruptures, and the immediate attention of hundreds of geologists. The primary and secondary effects were mapped only hours after the event, which turned out to be extremely important – a large amount of afterslip was recorded in the following days. The earthquake was not only recorded by a huge seismometer network, but the ground motion was also captured by GPS sensors and InSAR images. The new IRSN report is especially concerned with the surface faulting hazard, since this agency is responsible for the safety of nuclear installations in France. Continue reading “IRSN report on the Napa Earthquake, California (M6, 2014-08-24)”

On 17 November, 2015, a MW6.4 strike-slip earthquake occurred in Lefkada Island, Greece. Lefkada is close to the Cephalonia Transform Fault and has repeatedly experienced strong shaking in the past. The most recent event caused two fatalitites, some damage, and resulted in widespread environmental earthquake effects (EEE). A team of scientists visited the epicentral area after the quake and recorded the damage and the EEEs. They wrote a preliminary report, which can be downloaded here: Lefkada 17 Nov 2015 earthquake report (PDF, 3.9MB).

They document mass movements, damage to buildings, and present first data from seismology, GPS and satellite geodesy.